Threads
by CloudyRaven
Summary: I need not fear my enemies because the most they can do is attack me. I need not fear my friends because the most they can do is betray me. But I have much fear from people who are indifferent. - Assyrian Proverb
1. Chapter 1

This is the first story I am reposting. Comments are appreciated. Be warned of violence and gore.

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds belongs to the producers, writer and director; Blood Plus, the animators and writers. The only thing belongs to my head are the OCs.

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><p>"Haley!"<p>

The living room looked normal aside from the blood splatter. Aaron looked for signs of a struggle. Everything was in its place, just as he remembered it. He received a call from Aileen while out in the field and told that the door was left open with no contact with Sam. She wasn't supposed to have his number. Was he too late?

He should have known Foyet would use his own family as bait at a time like this! The others would be here soon enough.

The quiet dining room put him on edge. Near the top of the stairs, he heard a man's voice coming from Jack's cracked door.

"Keep it secret between me and you, Jackie Boy." Foyet was saying. "I'll be right back."

The agent braced himself as the footsteps grew louder. "Ever heard of knocking."

His eyes challenged him to shoot. There was no other choice. Slowly, Aaron holstered his gun.

"Daddy!" Jack's eyes lit up.

"Come in, Agent Hotchner."

"Hey, Buddy." he let out a breath.

"Are you still beating the bad guys?" Aaron couldn't believe that his son would think this monster was trustworthy. Jack went to show off his Captain America action figure.

"Of course, he is. Your Mom and sister will..." He covered the boy's ears and whispered, "D-I-E if he doesn't."

"Jack, stay here. My friend and I are going to talk outside."

He closed the door behind him when went back to defeating the Red Skull. If anything, it was a relief to get him away from the serial killer. Who knew how soon he planned on dragging this out.

"I thought you were going to shoot me in front of your own son." Foyet began to walk toward the bedroom he and Haley used to share. "Would you in front of your wife and daughter?"

"Where are they?"

"In your room spending mother-daughter time together." He pulled the gun concealed inside his dark jacket with a grin. "She's wants to become you, which is why I'm saving her for last. Haley tells me Aileen has an B in Psychology."

A fist connected with the UnSub's. No one was going to touch them! He wouldn't know what to do if he failed to protect them...

Aaron woke in a sweat. How many times did he have this dream? Foyet was watching them, he was sure, waiting for the chance to murder them. Most likely, however, he might watching his actions.

_It's just a dream. _

He tells himself this as he gets up and remembers the finalized separation. Jack and Aileen were with Haley, as they should. The dull pain was not new. These were the worse of them. The ones where Foyet taunted him using his family.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds belongs to the producers, writers and director; Blood Plus, the animators. The only thing that belongs to me is the OC.

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><p>He willed the elevator door to open already. They were taking their time. The nightmare was playing over and over in the back of his mind, as if it wasn't enough to know that the scenario was a real possibility. The U.S. Marshalls made sure to keep his family under surveillance if Foyet managed to expose the warehouse. For the last month, his promise was starting to haunt him.<p>

"You're early again." Rossi stood beside him.

"How was last night's lecture?" asked Hotch.

"It's all the same." the author cynically pointed out. "Doesn't matter if it's a room full of trainees or room of groupies, don't you agree?"

He couldn't understand the obsession the public had with serial killers. The BAU was not a walk in the park. Being in the same room with the sickest minds daily and the average criminal were completely different interviews.

"You can't blame them for being curious." The cases assigned to the team were brutal. The last one involved a female unsub with a delusional mission statement that involved keeping her customers close in Kansa. It didn't end well in the hostage negotiation.

"How long do you think someone normal would last in a room with men like Foyet?"

"Not very long." he had to agree. "What we do looks interesting from the outside."

"Until a friend or family member becomes he victim a psychopath." If Rossi didn't know better, Hotch was too relieved to have the doors open. The silence in the small space was tense for lack of a better word. "You don't have to come in, you know. The team can handle one case without you."

Hotch stiffened. "I can't do that, Dave."

"Why not?"

"You know why." The bags under his eyes were painfully obvious to his team. It didn't mean he had to stop living because of the deal he turned down in that Boston hotel room. If they stopped hunting him, he'd stop hunting the public.

"So what?" he scoffed. "You need one, Hotch! When was the last time you had a day off?"

"How do you know he won't try to kill them?"

"We'll catch him." The doors opened to the bullpen, but there was no escaping from it. Stopping at the foot of the cat walk, Rossi added, "Is that what your nightmare was about? How does it end?"

They all got them. At one point or another, someone suffered from the them. Hotch looked at the Italian. "I know you're trying to help but that doesn't change the fact he could still murder them."

"And your point?"

There was no winning this conversation. Everyone said they would eventually arrest him. It was only a matter of time and when.

"Hotch!" JJ walked up with an arm full of files.

"When did you get in?"

"An hour ago."

Rossi has seen JJ take criticism from the media. If this case has shaken her this much, then… "How bad?"

"A detective invited us in after finding no further leads on the current victim. He called hoping we could find out why the UnSub left no bizarre evidence." She went into the conference room, leaving the men in silent agreement.

"Something tells me it's not the usual crazy stuff we learn about."

"This isn't the first time we're given bizarre cases."

Rossi gave Hotch a sarcastic look. "Remind me again next time when JJ redefines 'bizarre.'"

Morgan stared after the veteran profiler as he walked away. "Just how weird are talking about?"

"Strange enough." Hotch said. "JJ needs us in the conference room."

Reid remembered how the man begged to take the case. Unfortunately, the bureau would think of taking it on considering the local law enforcement thought they could handle it. Looking over at Emily and Morgan, he lifted a brow. Was it him? Or was Hotch edgy?

"Don't look at me, I got here around the same time." Emily shook her head. "Is anyone else having an 'walk-over-your-grave' moment?"

"More like walking into a scene out of 'The Silence of the Lambs,'" said Morgan. "Did you catch Hotch?"

"Wouldn't you lose sleep with someone threatening your family?"

He couldn't answer that as they took their seats.

"We can start, JJ." Hotch looked up from his file.

"Local police responded to seventeen year old Alexa Daniel's nine-one-one call last night at nine-fifty leaving work at Sears." The blonde clicked the remote. "By the time they got there, this is what they found."

A pale red-head popped on-screen wearing shredded jeans and short-sleeved, sea-green shirt, head turned to the side. Five jagged slashes were on her stomach but no blood pooled under the body. They didn't know how to react as the terror in Alexa's green eyes hit them. Of all the cases, it was hard to imagine who could do that. The puncture wounds on her neck made it like a vampire's bite.

It didn't make sense.

"Are those animal markings?" shuttered Reid.

"The medical examiner's office says they resemble that, but the autopsy results dropped that possibility. So far, they are considering some kind of knife." She explained. "The on-duty manager was in the back, closing the store, when the attack took place. The police just cleared her."

"Did they search her office?" Rossi asked.

"CSU found nothing; no blood splatter, no buckets."

"Janitors' closest?" Offer Morgan. "Someone had to have moved her body after draining it. An attack this brutal would've been impossible to ignore by someone staying behind."

"Morgan has a point." Agreed Emily. "Where was she found exactly?"

"Seven feet from her car in the parking lot." A picture of a navy blue Bug next to the dead girl's. It's right windows and wind shield was dotted with blood.

"Was this what you meant by 'bizarre?'"

"She is the second victim in four days." JJ nodded. "The first person was twenty-three year old Coalan Zackary, the only exception is that he was killed inside an auto repair shop."

His neck had the same puncture marks as Alexa's. What little light there was reflected off the Ford he lay three feet from, sprawled out on his back with tools scattered to his left. A few drops of blood were near his head.

"Shouldn't there be more than two?" Morgan looked up from his file. "All I'm seeing is a UnSub on the verge of psychotic break."

"The lack of mild mutilation between the victims does suggest a slow increase of psychosis." Reid studied the copy of the second of the crime scene. "It's amazing, really, the UnSub managed to drain both victims out in the open without drawing attention to himself."

"If that's not already the case, then we'll have another body soon." the unit chief commented.

"Chief Willis expects us at the medical examiner's officer in thirty minutes. He said he would send security footage from both businesses and call to Garcia in the morning."

"That was quick thinking." Rossi closed his file.

"And thinking that will hopefully keep the media at bay," Hotch said. "Prentiss, you and Reid go the medical examiner's office; Morgan, Rossi, go to the last crime scene."

Leaving the room, Morgan couldn't understand what was up with Hotch. He didn't know why he pushed himself by working late while they did.

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><p>Thank you for the reviews.<p> 


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